
BR 53 
. S6 

Copy 1 


















LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


— 


Chap,1 Copyright No,. 
Shell_L_u_iz7 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 










































SELECTIONS 

FROM 

VARIOUS SOURCES 




n 


By S. CF CO.v 










DEC 


V; 


y 


NEW YORK 

JAMES POTT & 

114 FIFTH AVENUE 

1896 


c0 

C 21 I 






\SH’ 




•4 




i 



The Compiler and Publishers herewith ac¬ 
knowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., Charles Scribner’s Sons, and 
Roberts Bros, for their kind permission to 
use selections from their copyrights. If 
liberties have been taken with the copyrights 
of any other publishers, it has been an over¬ 
sight, and we trust therefore it may be 
pardoned. 

New York, Dec. 10, 1895. 


Copyright, 1895, by 
JAMES POTT & CO. 


LOVINGLY DEDICATED 
TO 


MY FRIENDS 






PREFACE 


Seldom has a subject been oftener 
discussed than that of ideals, and 
no wonder, as it is vast and bound¬ 
less ; for no sooner is one ideal 
achieved than another comes to 
light. The views expressed are apt 
to be extreme—either too visionary 
and impractical, or else too pessi¬ 
mistic and incredulous. The happy 
medium is always hard to reach, 
but here it is almost harder than 
anywhere else. 

My aim in selecting the following 
quotations has been to combine and 
harmonize, as far as possible, these 
conflicting ideas, and to show that 
the holding of ideals does not neces¬ 
sarily prove that one must be blind 


6 


PREFACE 


to existing evils. The man who 
has an end in view, and that end a 
good one, will generally see life in 
its true relations, and recognize the 
fact that, although there is much 
evil in the world, the light is still 
working its way through all the 
apparent wrong. It is true that 
there are times when evil seems to 
be gaining the upper hand, but if 
you look long enough you will 
gradually see the scales change and 
the good outbalance the bad. 

He who is constantly on the look¬ 
out for the darkness will finally be¬ 
come so blinded that he will fail to 
see the light. A gloomy, mistrust¬ 
ful nature will only attract negative 
influences; for it is a well-known 
law that supply is equal to demand, 
and that you get only what you ex¬ 
pect. On the other hand, one who 
is looking for the best in people will 



PREFACE 


7 


create such a positive atmosphere 
around him that he will uncon¬ 
sciously draw forth what is noblest 
in others. 

The air of the mountain tops is 
too rarefied to admit of our always 
dwelling there. For this reason 
we have our periods of hard toil in 
the valleys, where we learn to 
gather strength for the next moun¬ 
tain climb. If we steadily pursue 
our ideal we may have many 
valleys of difficulty to go through, 
but each succeeding summit will 
be higher than the last, and we 
will gain broader visions of the 
great future lying before each one 
of us. 

My friends have always helped 
me in so many things that it is with 
loving thanks I dedicate to them the 
following thoughts, trusting that 
the experiences of the men and 



8 


PREFACE 


women who have struggled and 
fought in the pursuance of their 
ideals may act as an incentive in 
their lives. c n 



IDEALS 


Still, through our paltry stir and 
strife 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing molds in clay what 
Life 

Carves in the marble Real ! 

To let the new life in,—we know 
Desire must ope the portal: 
Perhaps the longing to be so 
Helps make the Soul immortal. 

_ Lowell 

Unlike Philosophy, the Gospel 
has an Ideal Life to offer,—not to a 
few only, but to all. Jowett 


Ah! but a man’s reach must 
• exceed his grasp, 

Or what’s a Heaven for? 

Browning 




lO 


IDEALS 


It is not by regretting what is 
irreparable that true work is to be 
done, but by making the best of 
what we are. It is not by com¬ 
plaining that we have not the right 
tools, but by using well the tools 
we have. What we are, and 
where we are, is God’s provi¬ 
dential arrangement,—God’s doing, 
though it may be man’s misdoing; 
and the manly and the wise way is 
to look your disadvantages in the 
face and see what can be made out 
of them. Life, like war, is a series 
of mistakes, and he is not the best 
Christian nor the best general who 
makes the fewest false steps. He 
is the best who wins the most 
splendid victories by the retrieval 
of mistakes. Forget mistakes; or¬ 
ganize victory out of mistakes. 

F. W. Robertson 



IDEALS 


11 


Life upon the larger scale, the 
higher!— 

When, graduating up in a spiral 
line 

Of still expanding and ascending 
gyves, 

It pushes towards the intense sig¬ 
nificance 

Of all things hungry for the infinite. 

E. B. Browning 


We needs must love the Highest, 

when we see it. 

_Tennyson 

Tis a thing impossible to frame 
Conceptions equal to the Soul’s 
desires;— 

And the most difficult of tasks to 
keep 

Heights, which the Soul is com¬ 
petent to gain. 

Wordsworth 





12 


IDEALS 


Know that “impossible,” where 
truth and mercy and the everlasting 
voice of nature order, has no place 
in the brave man’s dictionary. That 
when all men have said “Impos¬ 
sible,” and tumbled noisily else¬ 
whither, and thou alone art left, 
then first thy time and opportunity 
have come. It is for thee now: 
do thou that, and ask no man’s 
counsel but thy own only and 
God’s. Brother, thou hast possi¬ 
bility in thee for much: the possi¬ 
bility of writing on the eternal skies 
the record of a heroic life. 

Carlyle 


The common problem—yours,— 
mine,—every one’s— 

Is not to fancy what were fair in 
Life 

Provided it could be;—but, finding 
first 




IDEALS 


«3 


What may be, then find how to 
make it fair 

Up to our means:—a very different 
thing! 

No abstract, intellectual plan of Life 

Quite irrespective of Life’s plainest 
laws— 

But one a man, who is man and 
nothing more, 

May lead . . . Idealize away! . . . 

You’re welcome, nay, you’re wise! 

Browning 


Ideals are the very soul of life. 

Westcott 


The dispositions, affections, in¬ 
clinations of soul, which shall issue 
hereafter in perfection, must be 
trained and nurtured in us through¬ 
out the whole course of this earthly 
life. When shall we bear in mind 





»4 


IDEALS 


this plain truth, that the future per¬ 
fection of the saints is not a transla¬ 
tion from one state or disposition of 
soul into another, diverse from the 
former; but the carrying out, and, as 
it were, the blossom and the fruit¬ 
age of one and the same principle 
of spiritual life, which, through their 
whole career on earth, has been 
growing with an even strength, 
putting itself forth in the beginnings 
and promise of perfection, reaching 
upward with steadfast aspirations 
after perfect holiness ? 

H. E. Manning 


Inspirations—which, could they be 
things, 

And stay with us, and we could 
hold them fast, 

Were our good angels. 

Longfellow 




IDEALS 


1 5 


Thy condition is but the stuff 
thou art to shape that same Ideal 
out of. Carlyle 


Lead, kindly Light, amid the 
encircling gloom, 

Lead Thou me on; 

The night is dark, and I am far 
from home, 

Lead Thou me on. 

Keep Thou my feet; I do not 
ask to see 

The distant scene; one step 
enough for me. 

J. H. Newman 


If you do not wish for His King¬ 
dom, don’t pray for it. But if you 
do, you must do more than pray 
for it; you must work for it. 

Ruskin 





IDEALS 


16 


Yet sets she not her soul so steadily 
Above, that she forgets her ties 
to earth, 

But her whole thought would 
almost seem to be 
How to make glad one lowly 
human hearth:— 

For with a gentle courage she doth 
strive 

In thought and word and feeling 
so to live, 

As to make Earth next Heaven! 

Lowell 


If you build castles in the air, 
your labor will not be lost;—that is 
where they should be;—now put 
foundations under them. Anon 


If I cannot realize my Ideal, I can 
at least idealize my Real. 

Gannett 





IDEALS 


«7 


Then be it so! 

For in better things we yet may 
grow, 

Onward and upward still our way, 
With the joy of progress from day 
to day; 

Nearer and nearer every year 
To the visions and hopes most true 
and dear! 

Children still of a Father’s love, 
Children still of a home above! 

Thus we look back 
Without a sigh, o’er the lengthen¬ 
ing track. 

F. R. Havergal 


You will find it less easy to up¬ 
root faults than to choke them by 
gaining virtues. Do not think of 
your faults, still less of others’ faults; 
in every person who, comes near 
you look for what is good and 




i8 


IDEALS 


strong: honor that; rejoice in it; 
and, as you can, try to imitate it; 
and your faults will drop off, like 
dead leaves, when their time comes. 

Ruskin 


You, who hold dear this self-con¬ 
ceived Ideal, 

Whose faith and works alone can 
make it real,— 

Bring all your fairest gifts to deck 
her shrine, 

Who lifts our lives away from thine 
and mine, 

And feeds the lamp of manhood 
more divine 

With fragrant oil of quenchless 
constancy. 

Lowell 


Our only greatness is that we 
aspire. J. Ingelow 





IDEALS 


>9 


The situation that has not its 
duty, its Ideal, was never yet occu¬ 
pied by man. Yes, here in this 
miserable, despicable Actual, where¬ 
in thou even now standest,—here 
or nowhere is thy Ideal! Work it 
out therefrom! . . . The Ideal is in 
thyself, the impediment too is in 
thyself. Carlyle 


You perhaps will say that all 
people fall short of the perfection 
of the Gospel, and therefore you 
are content with your failings. 
But this is saying nothing to the 
purpose: for the question is not 
whether Gospel perfection can be 
fully attained, but whether you 
come as near it as a sincere inten¬ 
tion and careful diligence can carry 
you. Whether you are not in a 
much lower state than you might 




20 


IDEALS 


be if you sincerely intended and 
carefully labored to advance your¬ 
self in all Christian virtues. 

Wm. Law 


The vision of the Ideal guards 
monotony of work from becoming 
monotony of life. 

Westcott 


A man’s best things are nearest 
him, 

Lie close about his feet, 

It is the distant and the dim 

That we are sick to greet: 

For flowers that grow our hands 
beneath 

We struggle and aspire,— 

Our hearts must die, except they 
breathe 

The air of fresh Desire. 

Houghton 





IDEALS 


21 


We know not exactly how low 
the least degree of obedience is, 
which will bring a man to Heaven; 
but this we are quite sure of, that 
he who aims no higher will be sure 
to fall short even of that, and that 
he who goes farthest beyond it will 
be most blessed. 

John Keble 


Every man has his own vocation. 
There is one direction in which all 
space is open to him. He has fac¬ 
ulties silently inviting him thither 
to endless exertion. He is like a 
ship in a river: he runs against ob¬ 
structions on every side but one; 
on that side all obstruction is taken 
away, and he sweeps serenely over 
a deepening channel into an in¬ 
finite sea. 


Emerson 




22 


IDEALS 


Man was made to grow, not stop; 

That help he needeth once and 
needs no more— 

Having grown but an inch by— 
is withdrawn, 

For he hath new needs,—and new 
helps to these. 

This imports solely, man should 
mount on each 

New height in view; the help 
whereby he mounts— 

The ladder-rung his foot has left— 
may fall, 

Since all things suffer change, save 
God the Truth. 

Man apprehends Him newly at each 
stage 

Whereat earth’s ladder drops,—its 
service done; 

And nothing shall prove twice what 
once was proved. 

Browning 



IDEALS 


23 


Of all paths a man could strike 
into, there is at any given moment 
a best path for every man; a thing 
which, here and now, it were 
of all things wisest for him to do; 
which could he but be led or driven 
to do, he were then doing “like a 
man,” as we phrase it. His success 
in such case were complete, his 
felicity a maximum. This path, to 
find this path and walk in it, is the 
one thing needful to him. 

Carlyle 


Some sounds sighed ever for a 
harmony 

With other deeper, fainter tones, 
that still 

Drew nearer from the unknown 
depths, wherein 

The individual goeth out to God. 

MacDonald 




24 


IDEALS 


Have we not all, amid earth’s petty 
strife, 

Some pure ideal of a noble life, 

That once seemed possible ? Did 
we not hear 

The flutter of its wings, and feel it 
near, 

And just within our reach ? It 
was!—And yet 

We lost it in this daily jar and fret, 

And now live idle in a vague regret. 

But still, our place is kept, and it 
will wait 

Ready for us to fill it, soon or late: 

No star is ever lost we once have 
seen,— 

We always may be what we might 
have been! 

A. Procter 


Trifles make perfection, and per¬ 
fection is no trifle. 

Michael Angelo 




IDEALS 


25 


If we wish to overcome evil, we 
must overcome it by good. There 
are doubtless many ways of over¬ 
coming the evil in our own hearts, 
but the simplest, easiest, most uni¬ 
versal, is to overcome it by active 
occupation in some good word or 
work. The best antidote against 
evil of all kinds, against the evil 
thoughts which haunt the soul, 
against the needless perplexities 
which distract the conscience, is to 
keep hold of the good we have. 
Impure thoughts will not stand 
against pure words, and prayers, 
and deeds. Little doubts will not 
avail against great certainties. Fix 
your affections on things above, 
and then you will be less and less 
troubled by the cares, the temp¬ 
tations, the troubles of things on 
earth. 


A. P. Stanley 



2 6 


IDEALS 


We may do 

Our Father’s business in these 
temples murk, 

Thus swift and steadfast, thus 
intent and strong; 

While thus, apart from toil, our 
souls pursue 

Some high, calm, spheric tune, 
and prove our work 

The better for the sweetness of 
our song. 

E. B. Browning 


The Lord knows how to make 
stepping-stones for us of our de¬ 
fects, even; it is what He lets them 
be for. He remembereth—He re- 
membereth in the making—that we 
are but dust; the dust of earth that 
He chose to make something little 
lower than the angels out of. 

A. D. T. Whitney 




IDEALS 


27 


By contemplation of created things 
By steps we may ascend to God. 

_ Milton 

Love taketh up no malign ele¬ 
ments; its spirit prompteth it to 
cover in mercy all things that ought 
not to be exposed, to believe all of 
good that can be believed, to hope 
all things that a good God makes 
possible, and to endure all things 
that the hope may be made good. 

J. H. Thom 


Rest is not quieting 
The busy career; 

Rest is the fitting 
Of self to its sphere. 

Tis loving and serving 
The highest and best! 

Tis onwards, unswerving,— 
And that is true rest. 

J. S. Dwight 





28 


IDEALS 


The thing we long for,—that we are 
For one transcendent moment! 
Before the Present, poor and bare, 
Can make its sneering comment! 
Longing is God’s fresh heaven¬ 
ward will 

With our poor earthward striving; 
We quench it that it may be still 
Content with merely living; 

But would we learn that heart’s full 
scope 

Which we are hourly wronging, 
Our lives must climb from hope to 
hope 

And realize our longing! 

Lowell 


Nor doubt that golden cords 
Of good works, mingling with 
the visions, raise 
The soul to purer worlds. 

Wordsworth 




IDEALS 


29 


Yet I argue not 

Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor 
bate a jot 

Of heart or hope; but still bear up 
and steer 

Right onward. Milton 


Because Thou sat’st not, lonely 
evermore, 

With mighty thoughts informing 
language high: 

But walking in Thy poem continually 

Didst utter Acts,—of all true forms 
the core; 

Instead of parchment, writing on 
the soul 

High thoughts and aspirations, 
being so 

Thine own Ideal; . . . Thou didst 
reach Thy goal 

Triumphant, but with little of 
acclaim, 

Even from Thine own, escaping 
not their blame. MacDonald 




30 


IDEALS 


Only in looking heavenward, not 
in looking earthward, does what 
we can call Union, Mutual Love, 
Society begin to be possible. 

Carlyle 


You have a disagreeable duty to 
do at twelve o’clock. Do not 
blacken nine, and ten, and eleven, 
and all between, with the color of 
twelve. Do the work of each, and 
reap your reward in peace. So 
when the dreaded moment in the 
future becomes the present, you 
shall meet it walking in the light, 
and that light will overcome its 
darkness. The best preparation is 
the present well seen to, the last 
duty done. For this will keep the 
eyes so clear and the body so full 
of light that the right action will be 
perceived at once, the right words 






IDEALS 


3 1 


will rush from the heart to the lips, 
and the man, full of the spirit of 
God because he cares for nothing 
but the will of God, will trample on 
the evil thing in love, and be sent, 
it may be, in a chariot of fire to the 
presence of his Father, or stand un¬ 
moved amid the cruel mockings of 
the men he loves. 

MacDonald 


In organic evolution species are 
transformed by the environment. 
In human evolution character is 
transformed by its own ideal. . . . 
Organic evolution is pushed on¬ 
ward and upward from behind and 
below; human evolution is drawn 
upward and forward from above 
and in front by the attractive force 
of ideals. 

Henry Wood 

(“ God's Image in Man”) 





32 


IDEALS 


We are compassed about by a 
cloud of witnesses, whose hearts 
throb in sympathy with every effort 
and struggle, and who thrill with 
joy at every success. How should 
this thought check and rebuke every 
worldly feeling and unworthy pur¬ 
pose, and enshrine us, in the midst 
of a forgetful and unspiritual world, 
with an atmosphere of heavenly 
peace! They have overcome—have 
risen — are crowned, glorified; but 
still they remain to us, our assist¬ 
ants, our comforters, and in every 
hour of darkness their voice speaks 
to us: “So we grieved, so we 
struggled, so we fainted, so we 
doubted; but we have overcome, 
we have obtained, we have seen, 
we have found—and in our victory 
behold the certainty of thy own.” 

H. B. Stowe 



IDEALS 


50 


There is in all things an Ideal, a 
Divine principle, revealing itself in 
spite of contradictory elements,— 
something which it would fain be, 
yet which it only can be in a sud¬ 
den, transitory flash, as an ordinary 
face will in some moment of satis¬ 
fied affection, of exalted feeling, be 
transfigured into beauty and noble¬ 
ness. 

Dora Greenwell 


Everything depends on storing 
up in ourselves, by a habit of well¬ 
doing, a great and ever-increasing 
fund of moral power which shall 
be available to brace us against 
sudden temptation, to help us carry 
out better purposes, and to hold us 
steady and true to the Ideal. 

C. G. Ames 


3 




34 


IDEALS 


Yes, this sin which has sent me 
weary-hearted to bed and desperate 
in heart to morning work, that has 
made my plans miscarry until I am 
a coward, that cuts me off from 
prayer, that robs the sky of blue¬ 
ness and the earth of springtime, 
and the air of freshness, and human 
faces of friendliness,—this blasting 
sin which, perhaps, has made my 
bed in hell for me so long ,—this can 
be conquered. I do not say annihi¬ 
lated, but, better than that, con¬ 
quered, captured and transfigured 
into a friend: so that I at last shall 
say, “My temptation has become 
my strength!—for to the very fight 
with it 1 owe my force.” 

_ Gannett 

Before each one of us a castle 
stands, 

Peopled with thoughts,—and there 
our thoughts must dwell. 




IDEALS 


35 


Beneath is many a darkened dun¬ 
geon cell. 

The middle stories look o’er pleasant 
lands, 

But from the towers a glorious view 
expands 

Of lake and forest, plain and 
wooded dell, 

From snow-tipped peak to where 
the ocean’s swell 

Breaks on the cliff or rolls o’er 
shimmering sands. 

Shall we, with cowardice, forget 
the sight, 

And send our thoughts to pine in 
dungeons drear, 

To lie there chained,—clouded in 
endless night, 

And trembling with a never-ceasing 
fear ? 

Or urge them on to climb the 
tower’s height, 

To where our souls can see the 
dawn’s first light ? j. w. G. 



36 


IDEALS 


There is nothing like the first 
glance we get at duty, before there 
has been any special pleading of 
our affections or inclinations. Duty 
is never uncertain at first. It is 
only after we have got involved in 
the mazes and sophistries of wish¬ 
ing that things were otherwise than 
they are, that it seems indistinct. 
Considering a duty is often only 
explaining it away. Deliberation 
is often only dishonesty. God’s 
guidance is plain, when we are 
true. Robertson 


We have only to be patient, to 
pray, and to do His will, according 
to our present light and strength, 
and the growth of the soul will go 
on. The plant grows in the mist 
and under clouds as truly as under 
sunshine. So does the heavenly 
principle within. Channing 




IDEALS 


37 


Not in vain the distance beacons; 
forward, forward let us range, 

Let the great world spin forever 
down the ringing grooves of 
change. 

Only that which made us, meant 
us to be higher by and by, 

Set the sphere of all the boundless 
heavens within the human eye. 

Sent the shadow of Himself, the 
boundless, through the human 
soul; 

Boundless inward, in the atom, 
boundless outward, in the whole. 

Tennyson 


The real is the fulfilment of the 
ideal. The ideal that becomes a 
practical reality opens to the per¬ 
ception of a higher ideal. 


Anon 




33 


IDEALS 


Our birth is but a sleep and a for¬ 
getting: 

The soul that rises with us, our 
life’s star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we 
come 

From God, who is our home. 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin 
to close 

Upon the growing boy, 

But he beholds the light, and 
whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 

The youth, who daily farther 
from the East 

Must travel, still is Nature’s priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended; 



IDEALS 


39 


At length the man perceives it die 
away, 

And fade into the light of common 
day. 

• •••••• 

Thou little child, yet glorious in the 
might 

Of heaven-born freedom on thy 
being’s height, 

Why with such earnest pains dost 
thou provoke 

The years to bring the inevitable 
yoke, 

Thus blindly with thy blessedness 
at strife ? 

Full soon thy soul shall have her 
earthly freight, 

And custom lie upon thee with a 
weight, 

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as 
life! 

• • • • • • • 

Hence, in a season of calm weather, 



40 


IDEALS 


Though inland far we be, 

Our souls have sight of that im¬ 
mortal sea 

Which brought us hither, 

Can in a moment travel thither, 

And see the children sport upon the 
shore, 

And hear the mighty waters rolling 
evermore. 

Wordsworth 


Be patient with every one, but 
above all with yourself. I mean, 
do not be disturbed because of 
your imperfections, and always rise 
up bravely from a fall. I am glad 
that you make a daily new begin¬ 
ning; there is no better means of 
progress in the spiritual life than to 
be continually beginning afresh, and 
never to think that we have done 
enough. 


Francis de Sales 




IDEALS 


4i 


Build thee more stately mansions, 
O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past! 

Let each new temple, nobler than 
the last, 

Shut thee from Heaven with a 
dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by 
life’s unresting sea! 

Holmes 


One’s vocation is never some far 
off possibility. It is always the 
simple round of duties that the 
passing hour brings. No day is 
commonplace, if we only had eyes 
to see its splendor. There is no 
duty that comes to our hand, but 
brings to us the possibility of kingly 
service. 


Anon 




42 


IDEALS 


Life is not renunciation, but con¬ 
secration, and is too holy a thing 
to be held in check, to be kept from 
attainments by trifles. Man sees 
life from the heights of divinity. 
Lesser heights mark the distance 
between growth and attainment; 
they measure the distance between 
the real self and the ideal toward 
which every true man struggles. 
The great tests are met by the 
power accumulated in overcoming 
the trifles borne in each day’s battle. 

The Outlook 


The saviors of the world have 
been those who have dared to stand 
alone in the ideal. The world 
would have been nothing without 
its idealists. They have saved the 
world from material stagnation; 
they have awakened us to the 
spiritual lying back of the material. 




IDEALS 


43 


Jesus set in motion an ideal of love. 
It is the ideal thought that trans¬ 
forms the face. The man that sees 
goodness in everything becomes 
lovely and beautiful himself. The 
ideal shall become the real, and all 
creation moves toward that end. 

Rev. E. L. Greer 


Only those who have served 
Christ faithfully in the valleys of 
daily duty, and have lived near to 
Him, can climb with Him the 
Mount of Transfiguration. Daily 
faithfulness is the ladder to Heaven. 
Unless a man has trained himself 
for his chance, the chance will only 
make him ridiculous. A great occa¬ 
sion is worth to a man exactly 
what his antecedents have enabled 
him to make of it. 

William Matthews 




44 


IDEALS 


Everything passes away that is 
not in harmony with the ideal, with 
the eternal plan. Nothing but the 
excellent is permanent. 

W. M. Salter 


LIFE’S TAPESTRY 

Too long have I, methought, with 
tearful eye, 

Pored o’er this tangled work of 
mine, and missed 

Above each stitch awry and thread 
confused; 

Now will I think on what in years 
gone by 

I heard of them that weave fair 
tapestry 

At royal looms; and how they con¬ 
stant use 

To work on the rough side, and 
still peruse 

The pictured pattern set above 
them high. 




IDEALS 


45 


So will I set my copy high above, 

And gaze and gaze, till on my 
spirit grows 

Its gracious impress,—till some line 
of love, 

Transferred upon my canvas, faintly 
glows; 

Nor look too much on warp and 
woof, provide 

He, whom I work for, sees their 
fairer side. 

Dora Greenwell 


Every single act of sacrifice is 
part of the great sacrifice. Every 
act of love and kindliness is only 
possible because it is part of the 
divine love; nothing can exist save 
as the result of the existence of its 
perfect ideal, and the ideal of per¬ 
fect existence is God. 


Shorthouse 




46 


IDEALS 


The life contains the life that is to 
be, 

And life itself is opportunity. 

The years are God’s permissions— 
who aspire 

May keep ascending higher, higher, 
higher. 

Life has its own conditions and 
demands— 

We hold its grandest issues in our 
hands. Anton D. Chester 


If he falls into some error he does 
not fret over it, but rising up with 
a humble spirit, he goes on his way 
anew rejoicing. Were he to fall a 
hundred times in the day, he would 
not despair,—he would rather cry 
out lovingly to God, appealing to 
His tender pity. The really devout 
man has a horror of evil, but he has 
a still greater love of that which is 
good; he is more set on doing 






IDEALS 


47 


what is right, than avoiding what 
is wrong. Generous, large-hearted, 
he is not afraid of danger in serving 
God, and would rather run the risk 
of doing His will imperfectly than 
not strive to serve Him lest he fail 
in the attempt. Grou 

That which endures in human 
character is the power of growth, 
the upward movement, the aspira¬ 
tion, always reaching on for better 
things than those already achieved. 
He who possesses these qualities 
never perishes, as a living influence. 
His spirit remains in the enlarge¬ 
ment of other spirits, the clarifica¬ 
tion of other eyes, the strengthening 
of other wills. That which he 
achieved becomes the foundation 
of a still larger and more varied 
achievement; and so the ideal of 
one life is, in a sense, distributed, 






4 8 


IDEALS 


and becomes the ideal of many 
lives. There is nothing to be 
sought more precious than this 
power of inspiring other men to 
more faithful work; this ability to 
reveal to others larger ideals of life 
and duty than they otherwise 
would have had. To have this 
power is to add materially to the 
moral and spiritual capital of so¬ 
ciety. The work of the fact- 
gatherer, of the student, of the 
maker of any material thing, may 
perish; but the influence of the 
man who has broadened life for 
others, and set the key-note of a 
higher strain, abides forever. 

Christian Union 


All things participate in the Di¬ 
vine Nature. The capacity of per¬ 
fectibility is indefinite in man. 

Dante 




IDEALS 


49 


Every soul which aspires to God 
as the chief end and aim of exist¬ 
ence, every soul which loves God 
deeply, constantly and fervently, 
calls to itself, holds and commands 
invisible powers and harmonies of 
which its earth-bound imagination 
cannot dream. Every fervent prayer 
for light, for truth, for righteousness, 
is an unconscious willing of forces 
which make for the causes you 
advocate. All tends to the attain¬ 
ing of infinite perfection—that God 
may be in us and we in Him, that 
at last God shall be all in all. 

C. L. Daniels 


We’ll keep our aims sublime, our 
eyes erect, 

Although our woman-hands should 
shake and fail. 

E. B. Browning 


4 




50 


IDEALS 


Cultivate the habit of always see¬ 
ing the best in people, and more 
than that, of drawing forth what¬ 
ever is best in them. ava„ 


It is by doing our duty that we 
learn to do it. So long as men dis¬ 
pute whether or no a thing is their 
duty, they get never the nearer. 

PUSEY 


If the larger number of people 
wait to make some specific change 
in life before endeavoring to realize 
their higher ideals in conduct, if a 
change in location and general re¬ 
arrangement and readjustment of 
method and detail must precede 
the better living, then will it be 
more than likely to be indefinitely 
postponed. 


Lilian Whiting 





IDEALS 


51 


How beautiful is youth! how bright 
it gleams 

With its illusions, aspirations, 
dreams! 

Book of beginnings, story without 
end, 

Each maid a heroine, and each man 
a friend! 

Aladdin’s lamp, and Fortunatus’ 
purse, 

That holds the treasures of the 
universe!— 

All possibilities are in its hands, 

No danger daunts it and no foe 
withstands; 

In its sublime audacity of faith, 

“Be thou removed!” it to the 
mountain saith, 

And with ambitious feet, secure 
and proud, 

Ascends the ladder leaning on the 
cloud! 


Longfellow 



52 


IDEALS 


No soul can ever truly see 
Another’s highest, noblest part 

Save through the sweet philos¬ 
ophy 

And loving wisdom of the 
heart. 

I see the feet that fain would 
climb, 

You, but the steps that turn 
astray, 

I see the soul, unharmed, sublime, 
You, but the garment and the 
clay. 

Phcebe Cary 


ST. SIMEON STYLITES 

In olden days, from his stone pillar 
high, 

The Saint cried to the gaping crowd 
below: 

‘‘Here stand I, twenty years in 
sun and snow, 




IDEALS 


53 


In dirt and prayer; how holy then 
am I! ” 

But now we’d say: “Cease from 
this idle cry, 

Come from your pillar—here are 
want and woe, 

Sickness, and pain, and vice, to 
overthrow— 

By work ’tis best our God to 
glorify, 

‘Unto the least of these’ was His 
command. 

Oh, coward, fly not from the midst 
of life, 

But dare its follies and its sins 
withstand, 

And, warring in the never-ending 
strife, 

Hold but him holy who, with 
helping hand, 

Draws some poor lost one to the 
firmer land.” 


J. W. G. 



54 


IDEALS 


We may be now, in the present, 
that which we aspire to be, not¬ 
withstanding the interruptions and 
the daily demands. These are 
not obstacles nor hindrances, but 
sources of strength; or, rather, they 
become sources of strength when 
transformed by love and faith. Met 
with distrust and disturbance they 
bar the path; met with sunny faith 
they make themselves into step¬ 
ping-stones. 

To idealize this daily life and to 
make it worth idealizing is the 
secret of that mysterious attraction 
called charm. 

Lilian Whiting 


Greatly begin! though thou have 
time 

But for a line, be that sublime— 
Not failure, but low aim is crime. 

Lowell 




IDEALS 


55 


Aspire, break bounds, I say, 
Endeavor to be good, and better still, 
And best. Success is naught, 
endeavor’s all. 

Browning 


One owes it to himself, to his 
friends, and the community in 
general, to live up to his best 
spiritual possibilities, not only now 
and then, on Sundays and holy 
days, but every day and every 
hour. Then shall the measure of 
time be found to be spiritual, not 
mechanical. 

In humanity each individual has 
an ideal self, even though sometimes 
so overlaid and overshadowed with 
the material and unworthy, with 
the transient and the trivial, as to 
fail of being discernible. 

Lilian Whiting 




5^ 


IDEALS 


If we would help others to amount 
to something, we had best first try 
to amount to something ourselves. 
And the more capable and reason¬ 
able we ourselves become, the more 
chance will there be of our employ¬ 
ing our time wisely and to good 
advantage; and the more chance 
will there be of our work bearing 
good and v/holesome fruit. 

To accomplish the best results 
we must surround ourselves with 
a wholesome environment; for a 
wholesome intellectual environ¬ 
ment strengthens the mind just as 
a wholesome physical environment 
strengthens the body. 

Man is a sort of locomotive, a 
machine built to get somewhere , de¬ 
signed primarily to move forward, 
and to make other things move 
forward too. . . . Now, no loco¬ 
motive, whether steam or human, 



IDEALS 


57 


can do this without fuel (unless, 
perhaps, in a down-hill direction). 
If we would accomplish the best 
results we must take on board a 
good supply of coal before we start. 
In other words, if we want to do 
our work well we must be well 
equipped for it. . . . 

We must strive to accomplish the 
greatest ultimate good, the greatest 
total of good, whether we make a 
good immediate showing or not. 
If we would build up an effective 
work that shall last, we must lay a 
good foundation first. 

G. S. 


Believe me better than my best, 
And stronger than my strength can 
hold; 

Until your royal faith transmutes 
My pebbles into gold. 


Phelps 




5« 


IDEALS 


I held it truth with him who 
sings 

To one clear harp in divers tones, 

That men may rise on stepping- 
stones 

Of their dead selves to higher 
things. 

Tennyson 


Like attracts like. There is a 
tremendous power of attraction in 
aspiration. “ Set your affections on 
things above,” and you will get 
them. 

_ Anon 

This above all, to thine own self be 
true, 

And it must follow, as the night the 
day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any 
man. 


Shakespeare 





IDEALS 


59 


It may be that in some great need 

Thy life’s poor fragments are 
decreed 

To help build up a lofty deed: 

Thy heart should throb in vast 
content, 

Thus knowing that it was but 
meant 

As chord in one great instrument; 

That even the discord in thy soul 

May make completer music roll 

From out the great harmonious 
whole. 

A. Procter 


In the struggle with ourselves the 
great thing is never to accept defeat; 
the man who staggers to his feet 
after he has been thrown down and 
pushes on in weakness and sorrow 
is on the way to self-conquest. 

The Outlook 







6o 


IDEALS 


All we have willed or hoped or 
dreamed of Good, shall exist,— 
Not its semblance, but itself!— 

No Beauty, nor Good, nor Power, 
Whose voice has gone forth, but 
each survives for the melodist, 
When Eternity affirms the con¬ 
ception of an hour! 

The High that proved too high,— 
the Heroic for earth too hard,— 
The Passion that left the ground 
to lose itself in the sky,— 

Are music sent up to God by the 
lover and the bard; 

Enough that he heard it once;— 

We shall hear it by and by. 

And what is our failure here but a 
triumph’s evidence 
For the fullness of the days ? 

Have we withered or agonized ? 
Why else was the pause prolonged, 
but that singing might issue 
thence ? 



IDEALS 


61 


Why rushed the discords in, but that 
harmony should be prized ? 

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt 
is slow to clear! 

Each sufferer says his say, his end 
of the weal or woe; 

But God has a few of us whom He 
whispers in the ear; 

The rest may reason and welcome; 
’tis we musicians know! 

Browning 


Almost everything a Christian has 
to do for his times and the sphere 
in which he lives transcends his 
ability, and the very greatness and 
joy of his experience (shall I not 
say the reality also ?) consists in the 
fact that he is exalted above himself, 
and made a partaker in his works, 
of a divine power, as in his char¬ 
acter of the divine nature. He is a 









6 2 


IDEALS 


man who lives in God, and by God 
is girded to his duties and his tri¬ 
umphs,—God in nature, God in the 
gospel, God in the spirit, God in 
the plenitude of His promises. 

Horace Bushnell 


A strong purpose creates its own 
means of accomplishment. “If a 
god wishes to ride,” says Emerson, 
“every chip and stone will bud 
and shoot out winged feet for it 
to ride.” 

To believe and go forward is the 
key to success and to happiness. 
Doubt and distrust are the negative 
and corrosive forces. The enthusi¬ 
asm for a high purpose calls into 
being the agencies by means of 
which it may be accomplished. 

Lilian Whiting 




IDEALS 


63 


Be as the bird, that 
Chancing to alight 
On a bough too slight, 

Feels it give way beneath her, 
And yet sings, 

Knowing she hath wings! 

Victor Hugo 


A man who stands united with 
his thought conceives magnificently 
of himself. He is conscious of a uni¬ 
versal success, even though brought 
by uniform particular failures. 

Anon 

One who never turned his back, 
but marched breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were 
worsted, wrong would triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to 
fight better, 

Sleep to wake. 


Browning 







64 


IDEALS 


Then welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth’s smoothness 
rough, 

Each sting that bids nor sit nor 
stand, but go! 

Be our joys three parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, 
never grudge the throe. 

Browning 


Nature is one harmonious ex¬ 
pression of God’s will, and human 
nature its crowning masterpiece; 
but the law of self-development 
which He has stamped upon all life 
makes its evolution to higher planes 
a slow and painful process, and in 
our groping after the ideal we are 
often wounded and bruised in our 
experimenting with what proves to 
be the unreal. j. Bellangee 

(“The Arena”) 




IDEALS 


65 


For moans will have grown sphere- 
music 

Or ever your race be run! 

And all’s well that ends well, 

Whirl, and follow the Sun! 

T ENNYSON 


To idealize one’s present vocation 
is to prepare for a higher and more 
profitable one. Work is not to be 
dodged, but transformed into de¬ 
velopment. The man must lift his 
effort, and not allow it to become 
merely mechanical. One’s attitude 
toward it determines what it is—to 
him. 

Human life is barren and disap¬ 
pointing unless inspired by an 
abiding and worthy purpose, and 
no talent grows except through 
faithful exercise. 

Henry Wood 

(“Political Economy of Natural Law") 
5 




66 


IDEALS 


All common things, each day's 
events, 

That with the hour begin and 
end, 

Our pleasures and our discontents, 

Are rounds by which we may 
ascend. 

• •••••• 

We have not wings, we cannot 
soar; 

But we have feet to scale and 
climb 

By slow degrees, by more and 
more, 

The cloudy summits of our time. 

The heights by great men reached 
and kept 

Were not attained by sudden 
flight, 

But they, while their companions 
slept, 

Were toiling upward in the night. 



IDEALS 


67 


Standing on what too long we 
bore 

With shoulders bent and down¬ 
cast eyes, 

We may discern—unseen before— 
A path to higher destinies. 

Nor deem the irrevocable Past 
As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 
If rising on its wrecks, at last 
To something nobler we attain. 

Longfellow 


Because the soul is progressive, 
it never quite repeats itself, but in 
every act attempts the production 
of a new and fairer whole. 

_ Emerson 

We are saved by our aspirations, 
not by our freedom from temp¬ 
tations; for real aspiration does 
not stop short of personal right¬ 
eousness. The Outlook 





68 


IDEALS 


The dawn is coming, O friends 
of humanity! For ages man has 
been slowly rising; the future is 
with the servants of justice; they 
Fight in a winning cause; but the 
work of hastening the glad day is 
the duty of every man, woman and 
child who loves, hopes and aspires. 
We cannot evade our responsibility. 
The cause of morality, growth, pro¬ 
gress and human happiness, calls 
for the consecration of hand, heart 
and brain. 

B. O. Flower 


I see my way as birds their track¬ 
less way; 

In some time—His good time—I 
shall arrive! 

He guides me and the bird. 

Browning 




IDEALS 


69 


MILENNIAL PROMISE 

Through the harsh noises of our 
day 

A low, sweet prelude finds its way; 
Through clouds of doubt, and 
creeds of fear, 

A light is breaking, calm and clear; 
That song of love, now low and far, 
Ere long shall swell from star to 
star! 

That light, the breaking day, which 
tips 

The golden-spired apocalypse. 

_ Whittier 

If men everywhere held the cri¬ 
terion before them instead of com¬ 
paring themselves among them¬ 
selves, general progress towards 
the normal would be rapid. Ideals 
are always striving to actualize 
themselves. Henry Wood 

(“Political Economy of Natural Law") 




70 


IDEALS 


OUR DUTY 

I reach a duty, yet I do it not, 

And therefore see no higher; but, 
if done, 

My view is brightened, and another 
spot 

Seen on my moral sun. 

For, be the duty high as angel’s 
flight, 

Fulfil it, and a higher will arise, 

E’en from its ashes. Duty is 
infinite, 

Receding as the skies. 

And thus it is the purest most 
deplore 

Their want of purity. As fold by 
fold, 

In duties done, falls from their eyes, 
the more 

Of duty they behold. 

Were it not wisdom, then, to close 
our eyes 

On duties crowding only to appall ? 



IDEALS 


7 1 


No! Duty is our ladder to the 
skies, 

And climbing not, we fall. 

Robert Leighton 

THE FUGITIVE IDEAL 

As some most pure and noble face, 

Seen in the thronged and hurrying 
street, 

Sheds o’er the world a sudden 
grace, 

A flying odor sweet, 

Then, passing, leaves the cheated 
sense 

Balked with a phantom excellence; 

So, on our soul the visions rise 

Of that fair life we never led: 

They flash a splendor past our 
eyes,— 

We start, and they are fled; 

They pass, and leave us with blank 
gaze, 

Resigned to our ignoble days. 

William Watson 




72 


IDEALS 


Those who, struggling against 
some infirmity, persevere with faith, 
in spite of failures and distress, are 
already conquerors in the struggle. 

Calvin 


Ask God to show you your duty, 
and then do that duty well, and 
from that point you mount to the 
very peak of vision. 

Edward Everett Hale 


The interior state of mind of the 
American people to-day is one of 
expectation and desire, responsive 
to every prophecy of ideal truth. 
Beneath the worldliness and frivolity 
and notoriety-hunting of the time 
there is beginning to stir, like a 
great quiet tide beneath the restless 
waves, a new movement of philan¬ 
thropy, education, and religion; and 





IDEALS 


73 


it is not impossible, when the signs 
of the present age are summed up 
by some philosophic historian of the 
future, it may be described as a 
time, not of the boisterous material¬ 
ism which is now conspicuous, but 
of the first beginnings of a great 
revival of idealism. . . . Self- 

conscious feebleness drops away 
from the young man who has found 
an ideal to which to give his life. 
With his faith comes his hope. . . . 
He does not sit with the contempt¬ 
uous; he rises up to serve with the 
hopeful. He believes in his own 
times; not with the foolish optim¬ 
ism of a boy, but with that rational 
optimism which discerns that 

11 Step by step, since time began, 

We see the steady gain of man.” 

Finally, this young man, thus 
waked from his inexperience into 
faith and hope, finds that his idealism 



74 


IDEALS 


and his optimism are given him, 
not as luxuries to enjoy, but as 
instruments to use for the redemp¬ 
tion of his time. He hears the cry 
of the age, issuing from its trouble 
and its sin, from its industrial mal¬ 
adjustments and its spiritual empti¬ 
ness—the cry for well-trained men 
to serve in these new fields of 
redemption;—and he simply and 
humbly answers to this new call of 
God, 4 ‘Lord, here am I; send me.” 

F. G. Peabody, D.D. 


There are many persons who 
brood over their own weakness, 
and waste their precious time in 
pining over opportunities lost, in¬ 
stead of arming for the conflict, and 
going forward with double energy 
to regain what has been lost. 

Christian World 




IDEALS 


75 


ONWARD AND SUNWARD 

Others shall sing the song, 
Others shall right the wrong, 
Finish what I begin, 

And all I fail of win. 

What matter I or they, 

Mine or another’s day, 

So the right word is said, 

And life the sweeter made ! 

Hail to the coming singers ! 

Hail to the brave light-bringers ! 
Forward I reach, and share 
All that they sing and dare. 

I feel the earth move sunward, 

I join the great march onward, 
And take by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving. 

Whittier 


To be a Christian man is to have 
that character for our ideal in life, 





7 6 


IDEALS 


to live under its influence, to do 
what He would wish us to do, to 
live the kind of life He would have 
lived in our house, and had He our 
day’s routine to go through. It 
would not, perhaps, alter the forms 
of our life, but it would alter the 
spirit and aims and motives of our 
life, and the Christian man is he 
who in that sense lives under the 
influence of Jesus Christ. 

Drummond 


Every change of position from 
lower to a higher, every step in 
progress, costs pain. But the real 
life is to be conserved only by its 
progression, and its adaptation to 
the new circumstances of the new 
age upon which that old life is to 
make its impress. 

Sunday School Times 





IDEALS 


77 


GAIN 

Life tends on and upward. By 
mistakes 

We learn. The hand which crushed 
our idols takes 

Our own and leads us to new 
shrines; whose light 

Shines but the brighter for past 
error’s night. 

Mrs. Alice W. Brotherton 


Do not dare to live without some 
clear intention toward which your 
living shall be bent. Mean to be 
something with all your might. 

Phillips Brooks 


Our safety is in having lofty 
ideals, and in constant labor to 
secure their realization. 

Joseph Parker 





7 8 


IDEALS 


To live nobly, energetically, up 
to one’s best, and yet without 
worry, is one of the highest attain¬ 
ments possible. It is the ideal life. 
Our whole duty is to do the will of 
God, and leave in His hands the 
outworking of circumstances, the 
shaping and overruling of all the 
complicated network of influences 
so as to bring about the right 
results. 

Sunday School Times 


Blindness to the faults of others 
is an evidence of lack of intelligence, 
but one may see faults clearly and 
at the same time see them in right 
relations to the whole character. A 
clear-sighted, wholesome, healthful 
relation to our fellows involves 
clear insight into our own weak¬ 
nesses; but such a relation involves 




IDEALS 


79 


still more a perception of the in¬ 
herent possibilities of growth and 
development which are a part of 
the most imperfect character. One 
of the finest attitudes which a man 
can take toward those with whom 
he associates is that of a learner. 
When we look to others, not to 
discover what is unlovely in them, 
or to fasten our attention specifi¬ 
cally upon their limitations, but to 
get something from them which 
they have to teach us, we are in 
a position not only to be helpful 
ourselves, but to help those with 
whom we are in fellowship. 

The Outlook 


Life is full of new starts. The 
only failure is to keep on resolving, 
the failure to start again. 

Peloubet 




8 o 


IDEALS 


To stand uncompromisingly for 
the highest and best things is a no¬ 
ble attitude, and involves condem¬ 
nation of any complacent acceptance 
of lower aims and standards; but 
the more single-hearted the pursuit 
of the highest things, the more rev¬ 
erent will be the attitude towards 
those who are taking the first steps 
along the difficult road. It is a 
cheap culture and a sham refine¬ 
ment of mind which ridicules or 
scorns the first sincere efforts of 
those who, finding that there is 
something better than they possess, 
have begun to strive for it. . . . In 
a democracy superior advantages 
impose responsibilities rather than 
confer immunities, and the trained 
man owes a peculiar duty to the 
untrained man. The deep instinct 
of the man who has had access to 
the finer resources of life ought to 



IDEALS 


Si 


bring him into closest fellowship 
with his less fortunate brother. A 
genuine culture craves opportunities 
of sharing that which it has secured, 
instead of withdrawing itself into a 
privileged seclusion, and the greater 
the need of others, the deeper is its 
desire to divide its possessions. To 
a man of such culture all aspiration 
is sacred, and crudity reaching out 
for growth is a claim for sympathy 
and help which has a divine urgency 
in it. The Outlook 


The mission of the ideal woman 
is to make the whole world home¬ 
like. Frances E. Willard 


To be conscious of limitation 
points to a larger, fuller, grander 
possibility dawning for us in the 

hereafter. Matheson 

6 





82 


IDEALS 


There are those who sigh for 
holiness and beauty of character, 
but they are not willing to pay the 
price. They sing, “More holiness 
give me,” and dream of some lofty 
spiritual attainment, some transfig¬ 
uration, but they are not willing to 
endure the toils, fight the battles, and 
make the self-sacrifices necessary to 
win these celestial heights. They 
want a larger spiritual inheritance, 
but they have no thought of taking 
it in primeval forests which their 
own hands must cut down. 

John R. Miller 


’Tis not the dying for a faith 
that’s so hard,—every man of every 
nation has done that;—’tis the living 
up to it that is difficult. 

Thackeray 




IDEALS 


83 


Progress is the law of life, man is 
not Man as yet. 

But in completed man begins 
anew 

A tendency to God. 

Browning 


Only by humble Doing can any 
of us win the lofty possibilities of 
Being. For, indeed, what we all 
want to find is not so much our 
place as our path. The path leads 
to the place, and the place, when 
we have found it, is only a clearing 
by the roadside, an opening into 
another path. 

Lucy Larcom 


As the artist’s ideal precedes his 
picture, so the ideal woman must 
be transformed before the actual 
one can be. 


Frances E. Willard 







8 4 


IDEALS 


How can we learn to know our¬ 
selves? By reflection never, but 
by actions. Attempt to do your 
duty and you will immediately find 
what is in you. 

Goethe 


Education is the penetrating deep¬ 
er and rising higher into life as well 
as making continually wider explo¬ 
rations, the rounding of the whole 
human being out of its nebulous 
elements into form, as planets and 
suns are rounded, until they give 
out safe and steady light. This 
makes the process an infinite one, 
not possible to be completed at any 
school. The beauty of belonging 
to this school is that we cannot 
learn anything in it by ourselves 
alone, but for and with our fellow 
pupils, the wide earth over. We 
can never expect promotion here, 




IDEALS 


85 


except by taking our place among 
the lowest, and sharing their diffi¬ 
culties until they are removed, and 
we all become graduates together 
for a higher school. 

Lucy Larcom 


If you acquire, let it be that you 
may dispense; if you achieve, that 
others may sun themselves in the 
kind glow of your prosperity. The 
people who spend all their strength 
in absorbing are failures and para¬ 
sites. It is alike the business of the 
sun and of the soul to radiate every 
particle of light that they contain. 

Frances E. Willard 


Art is not a study of positive 
reality, but a seeking after ideal 
truth. 


George Sand 





86 


IDEALS 


Their real power, the divine 
dowry of womanhood, is that of 
receiving and giving inspiration. In 
this a girl often surpasses her bro¬ 
ther; and it is for her to hold firmly 
and faithfully to her holiest instincts, 
so that when he lets his standards 
droop, she may, through her spiri¬ 
tual strength, be a standard-bearer 
for him. 

Lucy Larcom 


We shall be prepared for future 
opportunity, usefulness, happiness, 
only by diligent use of the present. 
We shall be ready for the greater 
blessing only as we grow in ca¬ 
pacity for it; and without this 
growth, it is more than likely that 
the greater blessing will not, can 
not, come to us. 

Sunday School Times 




IDEALS 


87 


To give ourselves a reasonable 
prospect of success, we must realize 
what we hope to achieve; and then 
make the most of our opportunities. 

Sir John Lubbock 


It is at least a consolation to know 
that we long for better things, that 
something in us reaches out after 
them; for, as a German poet writes, 
“Whatever we greatly admire and 
profoundly desire to become, that 
we in some measure already are.” 

Frances E. Willard 


It is the best society when people 
meet sincerely on the ground of 
their deepest sympathies and high¬ 
est aspirations, without convention¬ 
ality or cliques or affectations. 

Lucy Larcom 





88 


IDEALS 


Half the misery ot the world 
comes from trying to look instead 
of trying to be what one is not. 

MacDonald 


Happy is the man who early 
learns the difference between his 
wishes and his powers. 

Goethe 


Then life is—to wake, not sleep, 
Rise and not rest, but press 
From earth’s level, where blindly 
creep 

Things perfected, more or less, 
To the heaven’s height, far and 
steep. Browning 


Success demands considerable 
practice in singing, and untiring 
perseverance in its employment. 

Anna C. Brackett 






IDEALS 


«9 


Those who are walking up to the 
light they have are always the most 
ready to welcome more light when 
it appears. Wm. M. Taylor 


It is a sad weakness in us, after 
all, that the thought of a man’s 
death hallows him anew to us; as 
if life were not sacred, too,—as if 
it were comparatively a light thing 
to fail in love and reverence to the 
brother who has to climb the whole 
toilsome steep with us, and all our 
tears and tenderness were due to 
the one who is spared that hard 
journey. George Eliot 


The best reward for any faithful 
work is the privilege of going on 
and proving our faithfulness with 
more difficult tasks. 

Lucy Larcom 






9° 


IDEALS 


An honorable defeat is better than 
a mean victory, and no one is really 
the worse for being beaten, unless 
he loses heart. Though we may 
not be able to attain, that is no 
reason why we should not aspire. 

Sir John Lubbock 


Because all those scattered rays 
of beauty and loveliness which we 
behold spread up and down over all 
the world, are only the emanations 
of that inexhausted light which is 
above; therefore should we love 
them all in that, and climb up al¬ 
ways by those sunbeams unto the 
eternal Father of lights: we should 
look upon Him and take from Him 
the pattern of our lives, and, always 
eyeing Him, should, as Hierocles 
speaks, “polish and shape our 
souls into the clearest resemblance 




IDEALS 


9« 


of Him”; and in all our behavior in 
this world (that great temple of His) 
deport ourselves decently and rev¬ 
erently, with that humility, meek¬ 
ness, and modesty that becomes 
His house. 

Dr. John Smith, d. 1652 


Every human affection, could it 
take the course God meant for it, 
would link us to the angelic and 
the divine. 

Lucy Larcom 


It is the results which we have 
garnered that are of consequence to 
us, not the steps by which we 
gained them. It is what we are , 
not what we have done, or what 
any one else has done, that con¬ 
cerns us. 


Anna C. Brackett 





92 


IDEALS 


Without the spiritual, observe, 

The natural’s impossible,—no form, 

No motion: without sensuous, 
spiritual 

Is inappreciable,—no beauty or 
power: 

And in this twofold sphere the 
twofold man 

(For still the artist is intensely a 
man) 

Holds firmly by the natural, to 
reach 

The spiritual beyond it,—fixes still 

The type with mortal vision, to 
pierce through, 

With eyes immortal, to the ante- 
type 

Some call the ideal,—better call the 
real, 

And certain to be called so pres¬ 
ently 

When things shall have their 

names. E. B. Browning 



IDEALS 


93 


A soul occupied with great ideas 
best performs small duties; the di- 
vinest views of life penetrate most 
clearly into the meanest emergen¬ 
cies; so far from petty principles 
being best proportioned to petty 
trials, a heavenly spirit taking up 
its abode with us can alone sus¬ 
tain well the daily toils, and tran¬ 
quilly pass the humiliations of our 
condition. 

Martineau 


Never let us be discouraged with 
ourselves; it is not when we are 
conscious of our faults that we are 
the most wicked; on the contrary, 
we are less so. We see by a 
brighter light; and let us remember, 
for our consolation, that we never 
perceive our sins till we begin to 
cure them. 


F£nelon 





94 


IDEALS 


In God’s world, for those who 
are in earnest, there is no failure. 
No work truly done, no word 
earnestly spoken, no sacrifice freely 
made was ever made in vain. 

Robertson 


Now, believe me, God hides 
some ideal in every human soul. 
At some time in our life we feel a 
trembling, fearful longing to do 
some good thing. Life finds its 
noblest spring of excellence in this 
hidden impulse to do our best. 
There is a time when we are not 
content to be such merchants or 
doctors or lawyers as we see on 
the dead level or below it. The 
woman longs to glorify her woman¬ 
hood as sister, wife, or mother. . . . 
Here is God,—God standing silently 
at the door all day long,—God 
whispering to the soul, that to be 




IDEALS 


95 


pure and true is to succeed in life, 
and whatever we get short of that 
will burn up like stubble, though 
the whole world try to save it. 

Robert Collyer 


The essence of the religious 
faculty is its power to discover 
that there is something which 
transcends nature,—that the very 
existence of a visible order pre¬ 
supposes the existence of some¬ 
thing which is not visible. 

Matheson 


Not only around our infancy 
Doth Heaven with all its splendors 
lie; 

Daily, with souls that cringe and 
plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Lowell 





96 


IDEALS 


There is no action so slight nor 
so mean but it may be done to a 
great purpose, and ennobled there¬ 
fore; nor is any purpose so great 
but that slight actions may help it, 
and may be so done as to help it 
much, most especially, that chief of 
all purposes—the pleasing of God. 

_ Ruskin 

Coming to the point is the law of 
achievement. 

Frances E. Willard 


Little obediences lead into great. 
The daily round of duty is full of 
probation and of discipline; it trains 
the will, heart, and conscience. 
We need not to be prophets or 
apostles. The commonest life may 
be full of perfection. The duties of 
home are a discipline for the min¬ 
istries of Heaven. Manning 





IDEALS 


97 


May I reach 

That purest heaven,—be to other 
souls 

The cup of strength in some great 
agony!— 

Enkindle generous ardor,—feed 
pure love,— 

Beget the smiles that have no 
cruelty,— 

Be the sweet presence of a good 
diffused, 

And in diffusion ever more intense! 

So shall I join the choir invisible, 

Whose music is the gladness of the 
world. 

George Eliot 


There’s not a man 
That lives who hath not known 
his godlike hours, 

And feels not what an empire we 
inherit. 


7 


Wordsworth 





9 8 


IDEALS 


Our knowledge that there is a 
supernatural is not suggested by 
the supernatural; it comes from the 
very limits of experience, which 
the gnostic and agnostic alike hold 
to be barriers of our view of God. 

The very recognition of a barred 
gate implies the recognition of 
something on the other side against 
which it is barred. It is by the 
knowledge of man’s finitude that 
he reaches the idea of a Divine 
existence. 

Matheson 


To love God is to love His char¬ 
acter. For instance, God is Purity. 
And to be pure in thought and look, 
to turn away from unhallowed 
books and conversation, to abhor 
the moments in which we have not 
been pure, is to love God. God is 
Love; and to love men till private 




IDEALS 


99 


attachments have expanded into a 
philanthropy which embraces all,— 
at last even the evil and enemies 
with compassion,—that is to love 
God. God is Truth. To be true, 
to hate every form of falsehood, to 
live a brave, true, real life,—that is 
to love God. God is Infinite; and 
to love the boundless, reaching on 
from grace to grace, adding charity 
to faith, and rising upwards ever to 
see the Ideal still above us, and to 
die with it unattained, aiming in¬ 
satiably to be perfect even as the 
Father is perfect,—that is to love 
God. 

Robertson 


Every life has its potentiality of 
greatness, and as it is impossible to 
be outside God, the best is con¬ 
sciously to dwell in Him. 


Amiel 




IOO 


IDEALS 


Our greatest glory is not in never 
falling, but in rising every time we 
fall* Confucius 


I believe that if we could only 
see beforehand what it is that our 
heavenly Father means us to be,— 
the soul beauty and perfection and 
glory, the glorious and lovely 
spiritual body that this soul is to 
dwell in through all eternity,—if 
we could have a glimpse of this , 
we should not grudge all the 
trouble and pains He is taking with 
us now, to bring us up to that 
ideal, which is His thought of us. 
We know that it is God’s way to 
work slowly, so we must not be 
surprised if He takes a great many 
years of discipline to turn a mortal 
being into an immortal, glorious 

an ^ e ^ Annie Keary 




IDEALS 


101 


The little worries which we meet 
each day 

May lie as stumbling-blocks across 
our way, 

Or we may make them stepping- 
stones to be 

Of grace, O Lord, to Thee. 

A. E. Hamilton 

The soul ceases to weary itself 
with planning and foreseeing, giv¬ 
ing itself up to God’s Holy Spirit 
within, and to the teachings of His 
providence without. ... He is 
not forever fretting as to his pro¬ 
gress, or looking back to see how 
far he is getting on; rather he goes 
steadily and quietly on, and makes 
all the more progress because it is 
unconscious. So he never gets 
troubled and discouraged; if he falls 
he humbles himself, but gets up at 
once, and goes on with renewed 
earnestness. Grou 




102 


IDEALS 


If we look down, then our shoul¬ 
ders stoop. If our thoughts look 
down, our character bends. It is 
only when we hold our heads up 
that the body becomes erect. It is 
only when our thoughts go up that 
our life becomes erect. 

Alexander McKensie 


High hearts are never long with¬ 
out hearing some new call, some 
distant clarion of God, even in their 
dreams; and soon they are observed 
to break up the camp of ease, and 
start on some fresh march of faithful 
service. And, looking higher still, 
we find those who never wait till 
their moral work accumulates, and 
who reward resolution with no 
rest; with whom, therefore, the al¬ 
ternation is instantaneous and con¬ 
stant; who do the good only to see 




IDEALS 


i°3 


the better, and see the better only 
to achieve it; who are too meek for 
transport, too faithful for remorse, 
too earnest for repose; whose wor¬ 
ship is action, and whose action 
ceaseless aspiration. Martineau 


We owe a deep debt of gratitude 

to everything which enables us to 

rise above depressing and enslaving 

circumstances, which brings us 

nearer in some way or other to 

what is eternal in the universe, and 
« 

which makes us know that, whether 
we live or die, suffer or enjoy, life 
and gladness are still strong in the 
world. Symonds 


Tis best by far, 

When best things are not possible, 
To make the best of those that are. 

Coventry Patmore 





104 


IDEALS 


The blessed work of helping the 
world forward happily does not 
wait to be done by perfect men. 

George Eliot 


Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time. 

Longfellow 


So many worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be! 

Tennyson 


One’s real self is himself at his 
best, in the direction of his aspirings 
and strivings; it is himself as he 
wants to be, and as he is trying to 
be, rather than himself as he now is. 

Trumbull 







IDEALS 


105 


The recognition of the ideal is 
the first step in the direction of 
conformity. But let it be clearly 
observed that it is but a step. 
There is no vital connection be¬ 
tween merely seeing the ideal and 
being conformed to it. Thousands 
admire Christ who never become 
Christians. 

Drummond 


Men have often failed to do what 
they might have done because they 
have not had enough confidence in 
themselves. They have never done 
much good in the world simply 
because they never knew how 
much good they could do. They 
have not perceived or realized the 
power that God has given them. 


David H. Greer 




io 6 


IDEALS 


Let us then be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor, and to wait. 

Longfellow 


Immortality will come to such as 
are fit for it, and he who would be 
a great soul in the future, must be a 
great soul now. Emerson 


There are some men and women 
in whose company we are always 
at our best. While with them we 
cannot think mean thoughts or 
speak ungenerous words. Their 
mere presence is elevation, purifi¬ 
cation, sanctity. All the best stops 
in our nature are drawn out by their 
intercourse, and we find a music in 
our souls that was never there 
before. Drummond 





IDEALS 


107 


Whatever your present self may 
be, resolve with all your strength 
of resolution never to degenerate 
thence. Be jealous of a shadow of 
falling off. Determine rather to 
look above that standard and to 
strive beyond it. 

Charlotte Bront§ 


































Deacidified using the Bookkeeper pro 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2005 

PreservationTechnoloc 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVE 
111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0 013 754 572 A % 














































